Attitudes Toward Minorities

Although Austria had a negligible Jewish population by the early
1990s, anti-Semitism remains a prejudice among some segments of the
population. Social scientists disagree about the reliability of surveys
taken during the 1980s, but the consensus among specialists is that
between 7 and 12 percent of the population of Austria holds consistently
anti-Semitic attitudes and can be considered "hard-core"
anti-Semites. Around 25 percent of the populace is mildly anti-Semitic,
and approximately 60 percent is neutral or philo-Semitic. Surveys also
reveal that anti-Semitic sentiments are more pronounced among older
Austrians than younger ones, increase as one moves from the left to the
right of the political spectrum, and tend to be more pronounced in rural
areas.

Surveys also reveal that there was a decline of explicitly
anti-Semitic sentiments among some sections of the Austrian population
during the 1980s. The decline could derive from the worldwide
controversy surrounding the nomination and election of Kurt Waldheim as
Austrian president in 1986 and the public discussions of the fiftieth
anniversary of the Nazi Anschluss in 1988. Both events caused a critical
reevaluation of the role of Austrians in the Third Reich, as well as an
open debate about Austrian anti-Semitism.

The opening of Eastern Europe beginning in 1989 and increased
immigration to Austria were events that also influenced the structure of
Austrian attitudes, anxieties, and prejudices. The special status
Austria enjoyed as a neutral state between the two power blocs gave
Austrians a sense of security that disappeared after 1989. It was
replaced by the widespread concern in the early 1990s that Austria would
be overwhelmed by foreigners as a result of open borders. For example, a
survey in 1992 found that 38 percent of those polled believed that the
greatest threat facing Austria was its being overrun by eastern
refugees. The weakest social groups in Austria, the elderly and the
retired, and low-income groups--who had the impression that they were
competing with foreign workers--tended to feel most threatened by the
changes that accompanied Austria's new position in Europe.

The role of immigration became a very sensitive political issue
because of the erroneous but common perception that legal immigrants and
foreign workers are a burden instead of a demographic and economic
benefit. The influx of illegal or "economic refugees" from the
former communist states of Eastern Europe exacerbated the situation. An
increase in crime stemming from illegal refugees who entered Austria as
"tourists" led to increasingly hostile attitudes toward all
foreigners from Eastern Europe, the Balkan Peninsula, and Turkey and the
propagation of negative stereotypes. The results of a Gallup poll taken
in the fall of 1991 showed strong xenophobic sentiments toward Gypsies,
Serbs, Turks, Poles, and Romanians that considerably surpassed
anti-Semitic attitudes in Austria. The manner in which Austrians learn
to cope with immigration and integration will likely play an important
role in domestic politics in the future.